Just another bad day in paradise
by jammydoughnut
Summary: The majority of space travel is actually boring, and boredom is less stressful as long as it doesn't give you migraines. So just when Captain K thinks he can relax the universe throws him a curve ball. One-shot for fun


Jim sat in the middle of the bridge taking in the banter around him, it swirled through the reduced bridge crew like the lights of the transporter around him, but not touching him. Normally constantly moving, tapping a foot, swinging the chair he was abnormally quiet, resting his head on his chin. This was the mind numbing reality of deep space travel, vast areas of nothing punctuated by minimal periods of acute importance and hours and hours of paperwork. So people found ways to amuse themselves, Sulu seemed to spend inordinate amounts of time on plants, Uhrua was apparently writing an idiots guide to the differences between modern and ancient Vulcan and it's use in diplomatic language and Scotty was trying to get an extra nanometer per parsec out of the Fleets tightest engines.

Down to a bridge crew of four, and a Yeoman for the coffee run even he didn't need to be there but to log the requisite amount of time on his ticket, Chekov was monitoring the auto pilot, apparently with his feet as he lent back discussing the latest basketball game between engineering and navigation. Jim tried to focus on why that was important, he was sure he'd read about it on something other than daily orders, his brain ticked through the days occurrences slowly. Another sure fire sign that the migraine that he'd woken up with was stirring from simmer to full boil. He was only sat there because less people could access him to give him their problems while he was on the bridge the public at large had this image of the swashbuckling Captain spending his time wandering from Bridge station to Bridge station commenting on tactical issues and the like, but really he was superfluous other than to sign forms, ream the odd idiot crew member and read reports, in his ready room or in meetings, lots of tedious meetings. The penny dropped, the basketball game was an issue because Bones had been chewing his ear about the level of violence they had inflicted on each other earlier. The details were a little fuzzy he'd switched off about three seconds into the rant, boys will be boys he'd breezily shrugged off with a wave of his hand and McCoy had grizzled that it was a girl that had used a pointy elbow to break the Stellar Cartographers nose. When Jim hadn't come back with some with some witty put down Bones had just snorted about him not listening and stalked off.

He was listening, he'd wanted to whine, but his brain was like mush and all conversation was just rushing through the space between his ears. It had obviously just happened again as Pavel and the comms rating were both looking at him.  
"Sorry, zoned out there guys."  
"Which football is better, your American or European style soccer?" asked the Ensign earnestly  
It took a few seconds to compute the question.  
"I come from Iowa, we don't have enough people to put together a team in anything." He said elapsing back into a deeper funk than before, realising that they weren't getting any sort of conversation they started to talk around him again.

Jim snook a look at his watch, and immediately wished he hadn't, it was only about 10 minutes since the last time which meant there was still way too long before he could crawl into bed and just wait to die. He had got his body used to a certain level of stress, most people saw it as unhealthy but just gave him an edge, until one day he let the adrenaline drop and his body rebelled, why did that day have to be today? He glanced up at the view screen and then wished he hadn't, the strobbing stars were not a good idea on his bruised visual cortex, they just blurred with the flashing lights already dancing round the edges of his vision. Or did they, he squinted and turned his head sideways and saw it again,  
"Mr Chekov is that a flare?" he said pointing at the top right hand corner of the view screen, the teenager looked up as Kirk slinked out of his chair keeping low to save wobbling his head too much.  
"I don't know Sir." He said as he kept staring at the spot pointed out seconds ago.  
Kirk held his head with one hand and unlocked the nav station, usually occupied by Sulu, with the other rewinding the image and magnifying the offending corner.  
"It is, it is!" Shouted Pavel excitedly as he stared over his Captains shoulder, Kirk waved his hand over his shoulder to indicate a little less gusto in his actions. The Wunderkind started pressing buttons on his own panel like there was no tomorrow.

"Hey Ford" the captain shouted over his shoulder to the quiet science station, there was no reply so stiffly Kirk got up and walked across, "Ford" he shouted close to his ear. The hapless officer nearly jumped out of the really comfortable chair.  
"I'm leaving Spock to deal with you," said Jim wondering if the way he had pronounced his First Officers name had come out as slurred as it felt in his head, "Scan North through East for any life forms and distress signals." It could just be a shooting star but his hackles were up and he really felt the end of the shift slipping away from him.  
More blurred fingers as Kirk dumped himself back in his chair, belching slightly as his abused insides started to rebel at the thought of another half dozen hours awake while he chased wild geese through the vastness of interstellar space.  
"There is something out there, but it's weak." Stated Ford quietly.  
"I can boost it" stated Chekov running over to the science station, course you can Kid, thought Kirk silently hating him for meaning he couldn't ignore the issue. He flicked a finger over the comm panel on his chair.  
"Initiate Bridge crew return" he stated plainly so the computer could do the heavy lifting, he heard comm units going off nearly by and a few sets of thumping feet, when did he take onboard a herd of elephants?  
Quickly positions began to fill and when he judged he had an above even number of his staff in the space he cleared his throat to speak, it seemed to vibrate his brain just behind his nose and he had to swallow swiftly. No one took any notice anyway and he decided the best way to deal with the six inch nail that had suddenly decided to drive itself thorough his right eyeball was to close his eye and press hard on his temple, very hard.  
"Are you alright Captain?" ask Spock who appeared miraculously from his very large blind spot, damn the man for his cat like step.  
"What are you doing here Mr Spock I only requested the on call bridge staff."  
"I was with Lieutenant Uhrua in the Xenolinguistics lab when she was called and I thought it would be prudent to join her."  
"And what were you doing there?" asked Kirk opening two eyes and seeing two Spocks, situation normal for a Saturday night he didn't even flinch.  
"I was assisting the Lieutenant master the ancient Vulcan tongue."  
"I bet you were Spock." Grinned Kirk, himself for two seconds.  
Spock raised an eyebrow, "I do not understand Captain, there are only 9 Vulcans left alive who have ever seen the scrolls of the Katric Ark."  
Jim waived a hand, Spock was never, ever, going to master sarcasm.

"Mr Chekov, status report." He shouted slamming the heel of his hand back onto his temple.  
"Approximately 5 minutes ago the Captian notices an anomaly on the top right quarter of the view screen, this has since been confirmed as a possible distress flare though it is not certain yet. It has also been confirmed that there is a faint artificial signal that cannot be explained in the general vicinity though there are no Federation vessels scwdualed to be in this sector."  
"Mr Sulu set a course in the general direction, maximum safe speed."  
"Aye, Aye, Captain" he replied, he always felt the need for speed and felt that unless in the atmosphere of a planetary body anything less than warp 9 was an insult to his piloting abilities.  
"Punch it Mr Sulu." It was the bridge joke, it marked you out as one of the survivors of the original crew, the incomers never dared use it.  
It said something to the ergomic designer of the Constellation Class that it still required a large shiny handle to increase speed but Mr Sulu loved it, handling it as gently as any woman, though he probably got more action with that handle at the moment. Kirk squinted at the indicators on the side panel of his chair, the speed wasn't rising at the rate he expected. Quick as a wink Spock turned round  
"Inertial Dampeners Mr Sulu?" perhaps he had got some wit after all.  
"Err no Sir, looks like injectors 3 through 9 are not engaging."  
"Bridge to engineering" God damn that whistle was just pitched at vomit inducing  
Nothing  
"Scotty respond"  
The comm picked up a deafening noise and then turned into the sound of the unit being dropped, down a gantry by the sounds of it.  
"Mr Scott are you alright?" Asked Kirk with more irritability in his tone than he intended, Spock walked over to the engineering desks co-ordinating between stations.  
"Fine Captain, just doing some work on her fine injectors." There was pride as well as ownership in the voice  
"Well can you stop doing that, we need a little speed." He could hear Scotty playing the panel "Now Mr Scott, we are on a possible rescue mission."  
There was a pause  
"uh? Can it not wait, I'm at a delicate stage at this very moment"  
"Sorry to hear that Mr Scott"  
Something ticked in the Scottish engineers head, he'd been called by his given name thrice in two minutes by a man who invented nicknames at the drop of a hat.  
"Right on it Sir, twenty seconds and …. GET DOWN"  
Kirk flipped the comm off and watched as the sensors lit up the reactor representation on his screen.  
Sulu turned round as Kirk nodded, a little more gas escaped from between his teeth he hadn't eaten since breakfast and that was only cup of coffee and a dry crisp bread, if he could just keep it together for another hour, classify the flare as space junk and then he could die quietly.

Sulu pushed the engines and things became even more blurry, if that was even possible, his left eye was now permanently closed for business.  
"There is a signal of inorganic origin approximately 2.64 light years ahead of us" noted Spock  
"Drop us in about half a light year away Mr Chekov"  
He turned, "What on earth is an inorganic origin?" Spock raised an eyebrow, it was rare that the Captain admitted that he did not know something,  
"It appears to be an electronic signal rather than a voice message, Captain are you quite well?"  
Kirk ignored him, "Urhura, can you make more sense please?"  
"Boosting the signal it appears to be a controlled burst of static rather than a voice, though there are a few species that have similar diction the universal translator isn't picking up a voice recognition pattern."  
"See that was easy, plain Standard" Kirk was speaking to Spock as Uhrua carried on  
"I'll put it on speaker."  
She said flipping the main bridge comm switch and flooding the space with screeching clicky noises.  
Jim threw his hands over his ears and crunched down in his seat pressing hard on his temples and opening both eyes. She looked suitably shame face and switched it off instantly, mouthing silent apologies as the whole of the bridge gave her daggers. Jim didn't respond.  
Chekov jumped up and ran to her console, Spock started protest at the undisciplined behaviour of one of his bridge officers then realised it was situation normal for Enterprise and merely walked behind him to see what would have caused him to leave his station.

As thick as thieves he lent over Urhura explaining something, ran some sort of suppression programme and then they both started tapping on the desk.  
"Are you doing Morse Code over there?" asked Jim hoping it wasn't just inside his skull because it wasn't actually making any words, just random letters.  
"It could be Sir, I'll see if I can decode it now" stated Uhura high fiving the young Ensign who had saved her 100% recognition record.  
"Two minutes to target Sir."  
"Shields up, go to Amber"  
He was not going to be caught in some sort of trap when a Romulan Warbird decloaked after laying a trail of bread crumbs to their door. He cursed the squealing sirens and motioned at the damage control board to silence them.  
The bridge Turbo Lift opened but Jim was looking intently ahead for his flare, they seem to have stopped but that could just be due to spatial aberrations.  
Suddenly a hand clapped him on his shoulder, he jumped and nearly slipped out of the chair, brining the now monotonus banging between his eyes to an even higher pitch.  
"Little Jumpy aren't yah?" asked the doctor feeling the tension in his friends shoulder  
"Don't sneak up on a man when he's concentrating." He snapped back as they dropped out of warp, all eyes on the offending area of space. Jim noted the pale skin and the way his left eye was screwed shut, just like the time he gave him the Mud Flea vaccine. He still felt bad about that but it made them both the men they were today, alive.  
"You ok?" he asked quietly and was waived away for his troubles. Situation normal then.

At all stop at least the view screen didn't strobe as the science station pinpointed their anomaly and then magnified it, it was definitely a space craft, or had been quite sometime ago. No longer sleek but the metal micro pitted by space dust that was the bain of Scottys life, it just looked cold and lifeless. Small but mighty it had once perhaps been a space tug moving vast pantechnican containers of non perishables. The bridge was quiet, everyone knew the risks but no one wanted to admit it. As Jim was about to call an end to it another flare lit up the sky.  
"Surely no one can be alive on that thing?" asked McCoy, whose opinions on small space craft were legend in the officer cadre of Enterprise, more than one person could do a passable imitation of a drunken CMO expounding his theory of metal failure and boiling blood, it normally only took till the bourbon had come out for them to convince their Captain to recite the Bones story and all roar in laughter.  
"Scans indicate you are correct Doctor, however our scanners are not fully penetrating the outer hull and I can only be 98.6 percent certain there is no lifeforce on that vessel."  
Kirk groaned, that small chance was still too big to ignore, who ever or whatever was sending that signal could need help and the lore of the sea had moved into the sky, you never ignored someone in need.  
"Guess we need to go look see then."  
"May I suggest that you take a shuttle and wear EVA suits as a precaution, Mr Scott has not got a good track record in predicting the correct designation of onboard spaces and he could beam you into a difficult situation." There was an unspoken 'again' at the end of the sentence  
"Completely up to you Mr Spock, this is a science mission see what you can find and why this happened."  
Spock raised an eyebrow, for the Captain not to go bounding into any away mission was nearly unheard of, a trait that while he found admirable on one level made the human part of him distinctly uneasy in his role as protector of the Captain of the Enterprise. A second later he nodded and called two of his science officers and a security rating, Ensign Chekov also called after him like an excited two year old, the kid had an unhealthy obsession with historical space travel and the chance to see inside the old girl was too much for him to miss.  
"Take Nurse Sutherland with yah too, she grew up on freighters and you might need her for that 2 percent chance." Spock nodded his assent at the idea and entered the turbo lift, most of the bridge crew also noted the small wave Nyota gave Spock and the normal lack of response, as normal she just sighed.

Bones came to stand next to the Captains chair ostensibly looking at the view screen as Sulu manovered the large craft into a more suitable position for the shuttle to reach the stricken craft, a ballet in itself. He bent over from the waist to hiss in Jims ear  
"Are you going to tell me how bad you feel or do I have to drag your skinny ass down to sickbay?"  
Jim didn't even move  
"I'm fine Bones, nothing a few hours sleep and a Telusian Massage won't fix." He grinned, left eye still closed so it looked very lobsided  
"But we don't have any Telusians onboard and I very much doubt you have any intention of going sleepy byes in the next 24 hours."

"No this once I promise I really want to go to bed, but I can't because," he dropped his voice into a conspiratorial whisper, "I'm in charge here."  
Bones harumphed and stalked over to the med tech monitoring the away crew, let the kid suffer he brought it on himself, but he kept looking back anyway.  
Jim took a breath and pinched the web between his thumb and palm, Spock had once confirmed that the correct application of pressure could help relieve human cranial tension. He could confirm it didn't, but on this occasion it did wake him up slightly.

"Lieutenant Uhura any luck on the signal?"  
She screwed her face up in a very endearing way, and flicked her ponytail round just like she did when she was in a snit. "It seems random, it's not a language I've come across before but I'm trying to establish the pattern currently."  
"Perhaps it's just random?" postulated Sulu  
Uhura scowled again "Then why has it increased in frequency since the shuttle left the docking bay?" she said snippily.  
Jim processed the last few seconds but Bones beat him to the touchdown, "Wait a second, you're saying that they've sensed us coming?"  
"Kirk to away team, set phasers to stun, possible lifesigns on the craft."  
He slumped a little more in his chair as Spock acknowledged and his bed pulled away at light speed.

It was a tense moment as the shuttle docked, they already knew there was no sustainable atmosphere on the stricken craft but no idea what caused the increase in the message rate. Uhura was literally tearing her hair out, but if that was due to the problem of the signal or the fact her other half was stepping into the unknown wasn't clear. Kirk pushed himself forward in the chair, balancing on the edge so he couldn't fall asleep, surreptitiously monitoring the EVA suit bio monitors for any problems.  
"Tell me Mr Spock, what do you see?"  
"Nothing untoward Captain." He flicked the live feed from his helmet camera into the system and Kirk scanned it for its suitability, no skeletons, no dripping blood and thankfully no egg sacks hanging ominously so he halved the viewscreen and let the rest of the bridge see. The craft was in perfect condition as someone had just stepped away and the permafrost had moved in, Jim finally managed to open both eyes and take in the images.

"It's like the Marie Celeste." Said Bones quietly breaking the silence of the bridge.

"Any signs of life Commander Spock?" Asked Kirk.

"Negative Captain, we have however found a schematic and are attempting to locate the source of the signals."

"Sounds like a plan, be careful over there."

Bones raised an eyebrow, he wasn't sure which was more scary Jim not voicing an opinion on something Spock did or actually suggesting that someone should look after themselves. He walked back over to the Captains chair and bent down with a PADD of information in his hand and started to talk to his friend as if it held some piece of vital information.

"What have you done with Jim Kirk and when do we get him back?" he asked quietly putting a hand over his wrist, unsurprisingly Jim pulled away. "You have a choice Jim we can do this the old fashioned way or I whip out a tricorder now and scan you down to the marrow."

Jim put his hand back down and let the medical part of his friend check that he was still alive, the woodpecker in his skull could answer that one, barely.

"What's going on in there? I am here to help, even if you have some martyr complex that pushes me away."

Jim tipped his head slightly, "When this is over Bones I'm all yours."

Bones stood up with a quick squeeze of his friends wrist, after seven years he may just finally be getting through, the next step would be to get him to come for help before the problem started.

"Captain, we have ascertained the source of the signal."

Kirk all but jerked out of his seat as he looked up at the viewscreen, the away team were on the abandoned bridge and Spock was looking at a heavy glass type bottle laid on its' side wobbling on an old fashioned morse key, their movements causing the air to stir and the bottle to wobble more. Uhura pulled her comm from her ear and threw it on the desk as Bones swore in his Southern way; the rest of the bridge crew visibly wilting, including their captain. Jim never liked to loose and not finding life was always an epic fail.

"Spock try and find anything you can to identify the last known crew and then get yourselves back to Enterprise ASAP."

Spock answered in the affirmative and swept his gaze around the deserted bridge one last time, showing nothing more than piles of dust in the otherwise empty chairs. Kirk toggled the view screen off and pinched his nose, he was one the home straight, five more minutes to hold together.

"Crew of the Enterprise, this is Captain Kirk, as you may have seen we have an abandoned freighter off our port nasel. I can confirm there are no signs of life and as the life pods have not been deployed so we can only assume that they have lost their lives in the pursuit of space exploration. I ask you all to take a moment to reflect on their sacrifice and celebrate their achievements. Kirk out"

The bridge crew all bowed their heads as Kirk noticed the shuttle departing the freighter, after a decent amount of time he looked up and paged Scotty again.

"Mr Scott, please make preparations for Protocol Cavill."

There was a pause while Scott processed the request

"Tubes A through C will be loaded Sir, God Rest them."  
"Thanks Scotty, confirm A through C live torpedoes in the tube."

Half the bridge crew looked down to their stations while the others looked in dumb expectation, Bones walked back just to stand near his friend. Sulu looked up

"Shuttle back onboard Sir."

"Shut down the view screens in the lounges."

He turned to the weapons desk, this was normally a task for volunteers, a test of their resolve but too many of those ready to do their duty had already do this for real, he shouted the names of the three baby Ensigns.

"Each one of you will manually target the craft, only one of you will fire a warhead, the other two will be blank. Today the target craft is nothing more than a hazard to shipping, tomorrow it may be a Klingon Warbird or a rogue Federation ship that has hundreds of souls onboard. You will work out your firing solution and you will see the results, I want your reflective diaries on my desk in one weeks time."

The three young Cadet Officers nodded earnestly and turned back to their desks to decide where to target. Kirk sat quietly looking round at his bridge crew, their reliefs were starting to come onto the bridge but no one left, there was a solidarity about this moment that no one wanted to break.

Spock and Chekov returned to the bridge and the family was once again whole, Spock and McCoy took up the customary positions to his left and right.

"On my mark"

Everyone watched as the three the photon torpedoes left Enterprise and impacted on unknown craft, the live warhead obviously hitting the fuel store and erasing any trace of the vessel.

"Secure the area and get us back on course Mr Spock."

Spock nodded and waited while Kirk stood up, shakily and slowly taking a deep breath to hold down the rapidly rising nausea, "You have the conn."

Rubbing his hair to give himself a spurt of energy he fixed the turbolift and piloted what he hoped was a straight course, he could hear Bones starting to stalk behind him but before he could turn to wave him off Spock called him back. Jim would have to remember the Vulcan Gods for their small mercies tonight. He often cursed the fact that his own quarters were only one deck down and opposite the lift meaning he was always on hand, but it could be pretty handy in an emergency to get to the bridge and thankfully this time to get away from it. By now any adrenaline that had kept him going had worn off and his hands were shaking, stumbling he somehow managed to open the door and on autopilot crashed through the living area and into the bathroom. Falling to his knees he began to heave the contents of his body into the pan, after the first couple of waves there was nothing left which was, in his most humble opinion, when it started to get bad. He decided that he wasn't going to disguise the noises as his stomach turned inside out and tried to leave his body through his nose, in space no one could hear him barf. Holding onto the rim for dear life his eyes streamed and the snot flowed, this was the very human side of James T Kirk that he was ashamed of. He'd been beaten to within an inch of his life, shot with both a phase pistol and a real shotgun – now that hurt - and had very similar after effects to his myriad of hangovers, but at least he'd had a fun night the evening before. The only thing that could even come close to this was those final minutes in the reactor chamber, but at least he knew there would be an end to that, this could go on for days. He pulled back and waved his hand to flush, knowing he was going to heave again before the contents had cleared, his body shuddered he decided not to even bother leaning forward because there was nothing there anymore.

Bones knocked, it was a formality he was coming in anyway but he hoped it would give Jim a second if he was doing something he shouldn't. Bones mused for a second about the times he'd walked in on Jim, to be honest he wouldn't be surprised about anything he could see and had seen and it was rare his friend was contrite about anything, but he was secretive about his frailties. He also wasn't surprised it was dark, Jim had spent many years tiptoeing round different people and he knew how not to be seen in many different ways. He ordered the lights to 20%, he also knew Jim was possibly the messiest person in the universe when he wasn't functioning fully and tripping over a discarded boot would be a very likely hazard. Well he wasn't collapsed on the floor, ditto sofa, ditto bed so there was only one other obvious place left. He nudged the door to the bathroom and met with resistance.

"Jim are you ok in there or do I need to get security to break the door in." His voice was quiet and jokey hoping to hit the right spot, he was also scared that the reason the door was resistant was a body slumped behind it. There was a slight scrape and the outward pressure on the door lessened very slightly, just enough for Bones to squeeze in nearly stumbling over the outstretched leg that had been against the door.

"I need to get a little light Jim, I'm going to try 10% so I can find yah Buddy, do you need to cover your eyes." He heard the further rustle of cloth as he surmised an arm went over his head, James T Kirk was good at working on autopilot.

Even in the dim light he was pale but Bones could see no pools of blood and an unconscious man couldn't hold his arm over his face like that, all good signs in an emergency room. Sprawled was a good way of describing the form in front of him, the offending leg pulled up and his head thrown back against the shower cubical wall almost wedged in between the toilet holding the rim with the other hand to make the world stop spinning.

"Leave me alone, I just wanna die." It was a reedy plea that had enough substance to make Bones take notice, of course the Captain didn't actually want to die, at least he hoped he didn't, but it must be pretty bad.

"I know that's what you think right now but I can make it go away if you trust me." He reached over to the sink and soaked a towel hanging there, wringing it out he used one corner to wipe the corners of his friends mouth and then folded it over to make a compress which he gently sandwiched in the arm gripped around his face.

"Good?" asked Bones as he pulled the tricorder out of his belt.

Jim hummed in aquesance and nodded, which even gently was a near fatal mistake, his whole digestive system seemed to rebel at the same time making noises that even a seasoned pro like Dr McCoy found heartwrenching. McCoy held his head as he gargled and whooped at nothing so there was at least one other thing that Jim didn't need to do. The latest attack over he laid him back against the shower and filled the water glass,

"Spit don't swallow." He ordered and knew that they would laugh about it sometime, but not now.

Bones ran a quick scan to check that this wasn't one of the thousand and one nasties that lurked off planet and was pleased to find that death wasn't imminent, though with this kid it wouldn't be that far away. He could see in the dim light that unconsciousness was trying to claim its victim so he moved into the tight space next to Jim.

"Fancy somewhere a little more comfortable?" there was a murmur that he interpreted as, 'Yes of course Dr McCoy a bed and some working space would be a very acceptable alternative to this cramped hole'. It had struck him very early on in some of the battle simulations that they'd run in Star Fleet medical most casualties do not fall conveniently on their back arms out stretched and waiting for lines to be run into fine hearty veins. Jim automatically fell forward as Bones sort to lift him upwards, too many years of coping alone had given him a survival ability to crawl anywhere in most states and who was Bones to stop this show of evolutionary survival? He moved along side Jim as he piloted the short distance to the bed and more or less rolled upwards on the middle of the bed and curled into a small ball.

"Boots Jim" reminded the Doc as he fiddled with the buckles, Jims compliance was astounding, even with half his blood volume sloshing on the floor he normally tried to fight back. It was unnerving, no resistance as he helped slide his pants down and only a mild noise as he pulled the vomit covered command shirt over his head, though that was more to do with the movement than the indignity. A slight amount more prodding and poking got him into a more comfortable position on the bed and Bones noted the thin sheen of sweat across the whole of his body. Another tricorder sweep confirmed the reality that it was a hellish migraine and nothing but 12 hours of pure sleep could do anything to fix it.

"I'm going to give you something to stop the nausea, which has the pleasant side effect of making you sleepy." If he was expecting Jim to fight that one he was wrong, he just stretched his neck slightly "Not this time Jim needs to be slow release and into the biggest muscle you have." . Bones reached back for his med kit and settled the damp towel over the tortured brow of the Captain. He pulled sheet up and located the right spot just at the top of his glute and deployed the shot, rubbing the area afterwards to distribute the emetic and just to give some human contact.

"Thanks Bones, I owe you one." Said the muffled voice under the sheet.

"You won't be saying that when I come by in the morning and use the same spot as target practice as I kick your butt."

"You can't use my body as a weapon against me." The voice was already starting to grow weaker.

"For crying out loud give in and go to sleep."

There was no reply, the breathing swallowed and Jims body started to relax. Bones took the damp towel and wiped the vestiges of the last twenty minutes from his friends face and threw it in the laundry chute with the clothes. Checking the bathroom was reasonably clean and that the route was clear Leonard McCoy left the bathroom light low and turned the room lights off, locking the door as he went.

"Spock." He shouted into his communicator.

"Dr McCoy."

"Nothing short of imminent termination of all life in Enterprise is to disturb the Captain for the next 24 hours."

"Noted Doctor, I shall endeavour to us away from all such circumstances, a trait we perhaps need to teach the Captain himself?"

"Let me know how you get on with that one."


End file.
